I’m working on the last book of my School of Magic series, currently under the title of Captivating the Countess (I’m hoping by writing this here I’ll finally commit to a title. Those of you who read my newsletter will note that I’ve been struggling with the previous title of The Duke’s Magic because the marquess is the hero). This book is basically an aristocratic house party in a house as large as Chatsworth—with ghosts. Unlike Christina Courtenay, I have no need to research house plans. I love making up my own, and I’ve visited enough old houses over the decades to have a fairly good knowledge of what goes where, if it absolutely must.
This leaves me in the strange position of not needing a lot of research. I like research. It often sets off plot points that wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise. But these characters and this house were established in earlier books. I just need to find some way to bring them together and let things happen. So most of my digging has been into the family history, established over several sets of Magic books, and trying to avoid obvious errors.
There is freedom in not being confined by scientific research and actual history, but evidently, I need defined lines to guide me. To picture my process, imagine a coloring book. I can neatly color inside the lines of a clown figure, make his nose any color I like, decorate his suit at will. If I decide to go outside the lines, I can draw outlines that conform to the shape already established. History gives me boundaries, much as the printed clown would. And even if reality is messy, it’s still better than taking a blank sheet of paper and blindly scribbling—which is currently what I’m doing.
And because I’m dealing with paranormal elements, I really need to ground the story in reality. At the moment, the only authenticity, outside the architecture, is medical. My duke and marquess are both physicians. Without going into plot, I had to determine what is wrong with the duke. And I had to find a real condition to go with the heroine’s distressing habit of keeling over, as she puts it. And no, it’s not her corset, although that is a nice period detail to play with. (The image I’m showing is 1886 because it’s a cool image and the one from 1869 was mostly about the embroidery)
Finding medical details isn’t difficult. I found a great setup for the duke—only in 1871, medical science had utterly no way of detecting or curing it.
Now fainting—that has all sorts of possibilities. Irregular heartbeats, seizures, hyperventilation, hypoglycemia, anemia, how the nervous system relates to blood pressure—all can lead to our heroines regularly having the vapors. Unfortunately, what medical science knew about any of this in 1871 is extremely limited. Even a basic problem like blood pressure couldn’t be detected, although they did know about it. But they had no way of measuring blood pressure until 1874, when Frederick Mahomed invented the sphygmograph. Measuring and understanding took another twenty years.
So, there’s my clown outline. How do I color in the medical realities to ground my story so I can make the paranormal elements seem real? I don’t have an answer for that yet. <G>
Can you recall any stories where reality grounded the fictional? I know more than one of you out there know your history. Do you read historical romance to understand that history better? What kind of history do you like to see in your romances?